Heavy security as Philippines closes Boracay to tourists
April 26, 2018 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
Comments Off
The Philippines shuttered its most famous holiday island Boracay to tourists on Thursday for a six-month clean-up, which the government has imposed with a muscular show of its security forces.
Coast guard boats were on patrol and assault rifle-wielding police were posted at entry points to the once-pristine island that has become tainted by heavy commercialisation and overdevelopment.
Regional police head Cesar Binag told AFP the shutdown began past midnight, with tourists barred from boarding the ferry that is the main way onto the island.
“Boracay is officially closed to tourists. We are not closing establishments but tourists cannot enter. We are implementing the instruction of the president,” Binag said.
About 600 policemen were deployed, with some performing life-like drills including riot officers battling bottle-hurling protesters and mock hostage taking of sunbathers — all before startled locals.
“My nephews and nieces were afraid,” Filipino tourist Tara Calcetas told AFP. “It was scary because there were people swimming yesterday (at the beach) and the police were firing guns as if there was a criminal here.”
The government conceded on Thursday there was no real threat, with interior ministry assistant secretary Epimaco Densing telling AFP the security presence was “just part of preparing for the worst”.
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the shutdown this month after calling the resort a “cesspool”, dirtied by tourism-related businesses flushing their raw sewage directly into the ocean.
During the closure, only residents with ID cards are allowed to board ferries to Boracay, which is home to around 40,000 people.
People on the so-called “party island” held a final bash on the beachfront on the eve of the closure, complete with a fireworks display and cheers of “Bye, Bye Boracay”.
But on Thursday, residents had the swaying palms, turquoise waters and usually mobbed white-sand beaches mostly to themselves.
“This is what you call an island, a paradise. Boracay looks like its original beautiful self,” said restaurant cook John Reymar.
The Philippines has pledged to take advantage of the calm to spruce up the 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) chunk of bruised paradise.
There are plans to bulldoze illegal or dilapidated structures, to shore up the island’s infrastructure and clean up the mess left by years of unchecked growth.
However, plans to help the up to 30,000 people who had been employed by the island’s bustling tourist trade were less clear. Though Duterte has promised some $38 million in funds to help workers, they say they haven’t seen a cent yet.
The workers were drawn by the relatively good wages on the island that has seen the number of visitors roughly quadruple to two million since 2006.
Those tourists, a growing number of whom are Chinese and Korean, pumped roughly $1 billion in revenue into the Philippine economy last year.
But its growth from a sleepy backpacker hideaway into a mass-tourism hub with fast food outlets on the beach has taken a toll.
Unchecked construction has eaten away at the island’s natural beauty, while slimy algae-filled waves in some areas and mountains of discarded drink bottles are problems acknowledged even by critics of the shutdown.
“I’m all for rehabilitation and preserving it but clearly this is not the way to do it,” Philippine politics expert Ashley Acedillo told AFP.
He called the closure an “ill-thought through, unplanned and knee-jerk action” that did not take into account the economic impact on the island’s workers and business community.
Reymar, the restaurant cook, agreed: “But maybe without tourists, what is the use of having a beautiful island?”
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the shutdown this month after calling the resort a “cesspool”, dirtied by tourism-related businesses flushing their raw sewage directly into the ocean
Map and factfile on the Philippines’ best known holiday island Boracay.
Critics say the Boracay closure is a knee-jerk reaction that will put thousands out of work
Volunteers help to clean up Boracay’s Bulabog beach
Share and Enjoy
Facebook to Vet UK Political Ads During 2019 Elections
April 26, 2018 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Comments Off
Facebook Inc. said it will make sure political ads on its platform will be vetted and transparent in time for England and Northern Ireland’s 2019 local elections, the company has said.
Only verified accounts will be allowed to pay for political ads, and users will be able to view all promotions paid for by a campaign — not just those targeted to them based on their demographic or “likes.”
“We’re going to provide a searchable archive of all of those ads, and show who paid for them,” Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer told a U.K. parliamentary committee Thursday.
Read More: Facebook Surges After Sending Upbeat Message to Wall Street
Schroepfer is the latest to give evidence to U.K. lawmakers as part of an investigation into fake news and its impact on elections, in the wake of revelations that vast swathes of Facebook user data were shared with British data firm Cambridge Analytica.
The CTO said Facebook ads would be labeled as “political,” and that all promotions would be available to be searched in an archive the social network will keep available for seven years. Data in the archive will also show how many people may have seen each ad, and how much was paid for their display.
Understanding the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Story: QuickTake
In a tense exchange between Damian Collins, head of the committee, about whether Facebook users can choose not to see ads from specific political parties or campaigns, Schroepfer said “there’s no category-by-category opt-out,” but that individuals could choose not to see specific ads once they’ve been shown them once.
Collins was not impressed. “That’s a weak tool to stop people getting messaging they don’t want,” he said, and suggested he thought political advertising and related user preferences should be treated very differently to those concerning general consumer interests.
The lawmaker asked why Facebook didn’t spot Russia’s use of the social network to target voters sooner. “We were slow to spot that,” Schroepfer said, adding, “I’m way more disappointed in this than you are.” The claim prompted laughs from around the interview room and a subsequent apology from the CTO. “It’s a high bar,” Collins replied.
Schroepfer said that while he was giving evidence, “we’ll likely be blocking hundreds of thousands of attempts by people from around the world trying to create accounts with automated systems.”
Later in the hearing, the CTO said Facebook did not know until last year that the person it hired to be a social psychology researcher — Joseph Chancellor — had co-founded Global Science Research, the company with Aleksandr Kogan that obtained information on Facebook users via a personality quiz app. Kogan later gave that information to Cambridge Analytica.
One of the most heated exchange of words came between Julian Knight and Schroepfer. The minister slammed the CTO, saying, “your company is the problem,” and suggested the social network tried to prevent the press telling the truth about its business.
The parliamentary committee interviewing Schroepfer has recently heard evidence from whistle-blower Christopher Wylie, former Cambridge Analytica executive Brittany Kaiser, and Kogan, the researcher who shared Facebook user data with Cambridge Analytica.
Ousted Cambridge Chief Executive Officer Alexander Nix refused to appear before the committee earlier this month, after previously agreeing to. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg also said in March that he will not appear and that Schroepfer would fill this request.